48 Hour Producer Challenge (DoomJockey vs Rek_Aviles vs L3VER MUSIK vs Banedox)

[alexreedDJ]

Especially like Track 2 and 3. Voted for 2.

In terms of the criteria:

Track 1-
Really liked the string sounds and the melodies but wasn't a fan of the drum sounds used. Mixing wasn't great but the sound quality was good.

Track 2-
Like the drum chord and hi hat movement together. Bass was nice too, if a little quiet.Very little bad to say about this track- great job.

Track 3-
Loved the intro and melodies used throughout. Again not keen on the snare but that's personal preference. Lacking a bit of bottom end for me. Nice track

Track 4-
Some nice techniques in here, especially for 48 hours. Sounds seem a little less crafted to me and in the last section there seems to be a lot of conflicts. A better mix could make this a really good track.

Props to all

[DoomJockey]

Alright well I made my vote (didn't vote for my own)! I'll wait until it's all said and done to leave some feedback. My trusted laptop that's been with me as long as I've been with my wife died yesterday so I've been too sad to listen to music hahaha.

All of you did an awesome freaking job! I just have to say though for whoever made track 1; All of the melodies and notes made me so happy, it was like some old school 80's jazzercise video tune and it was absolutely EPIC!!

[banedox]

Alright well I made my vote (didn't vote for my own)! I'll wait until it's all said and done to leave some feedback. My trusted laptop that's been with me as long as I've been with my wife died yesterday so I've been too sad to listen to music hahaha.

All of you did an awesome freaking job! I just have to say though for whoever made track 1; All of the melodies and notes made me so happy, it was like some old school 80's jazzercise video tune and it was absolutely EPIC!!

Oh no I had to read that a couple times to make sure your laptop died and not your wife -.-
Sad to hear that but think about the awesome contraption you can buy to replace it!

For track one, you have now made me now unable to heard these words during the song.

"Stretch for it" "Relax" "Work it" "You can do it" "And Hold, and hold and hold, breath"
and lots more

[Kevin James]

I suck at life and got yanked away and could not get my track in on time

Can we please do another again sometime?

Track 1 - Sounds very generic, thin, 2001. Not my cup of tea.

Track 2 - YEAHSSS. This is on fucking point. Very deep, clean, I would absolutely play this groove. I could do without that crazy whirling sound you added towards the end of the track, but yeah, great work, especially in the time frame given.

Track 3 - Wasn't sure where this was going at first, then it came in and had my ass bouncing. The high end synth you added in the middle of the track was just a bit too thin an wacky for my liking. Once that disappeared I was back in the groove. At the end around 4 minutes it all breaks down and that bassline truly shines. Fuckin sick groove right there, would love to see a more simplified version of the tune, but like track 2, impressive for the time frame.

Track 4 - Not my style of music, but I am gonna try and judge it based on the production aspects. The musical notes are wicked repetitive, some variation would have gone a long way. The synths sound really thin and "cheap" too. The over all mix is also very muddy, however, when the track breaks down towards the end the mix sounds much better.

For me this comes down to Track 2 vs Track 3 and I am completely torn. Both of you did great work here. I guess when it comes down to it, Track 3 really is something I could play at an Afterhours club as is.

Track 3, you got my vote.

Let's get another production battle going, I would love to get involved in the next one. Would also love to see some DJF remix contests

[L3VER MUSIK]

okay i guess ill just comment and not wait the anticipation is killing me

track 1 - ill start by saying it doesn't matter where we start but where we end up. First off congrats on even finishing going till the end, you may not realize how big of an accomplishment it is to even finish tracks so give yourself alot of credit. Biggest thing that jumped out at me was structure. Mainly the first build comes in on a strange bar like 52. House music, as all music, is broken down in sections called measures. Which can be broken down into bars. They are usually in whats called 4/4 which means 4 bars per measure. Now if you multiply those measures you get even intervals of bars like 4-8-16-32-64 ext. This brings me to my point your drum builds are on off bars like 52 or 54 or something like that, this is mathmatically incorrect. House music specifically is usually broken down in to minuet sections which would be 64 bars @ 120bpm. try to focus an having every sections begin and end in 1:00 intervals the intro, mid section, breakdown, outro. This will make your tracks dj friendly giving your proper time to mix in and out of other tracks. Having said this deffinately could use some work the the mixdown, i would suggest youtubing basic EQing and side-chain compression, and get a grasp on how to start separating your sounds in the mix itself. Again be proud you finished and i def feel you have potential keep going and educate yourself a little bit more on the basics.

track 2 - really dig this tune sounds good has some fun qualities to it, i feel the bass could be a little more prominent. Also the intro could do without the synth line, save that for the breakdown and main parts of the tracks. I say this only because it would make it easier to mix in general, especially for people who don't know the track as well as the person who made it. I do like the drums very strong rythm, could mayb do without the first half drop @ 1:30 or the first actual drop after the break. Just droping directly into the meat for the track and adding different melodies as you go would make it more interesting to a larger audience. Good track - like what you did there

track 3 - Really love the synth work, the tracks kinda creeps on you, don't really know where its going until your totally in it i LOVE that. The structure is there the sound is quality -- this is the one that got my vote. GOOD JOB not much bad things to say i like this one.

track 4 - Ok so i love me some techno - this deffinetely has an old school tehcno vibe. I would agree with an earlier post about variation. I can tell you have a decent grasp on mixdowns, i like the drums sounds, if you only switched up the synth line and mayb added a few more elements to the drums like percussion hits to spice up the off beat ride or some shakers that would do alot. The main synth could come down a bit it sounds great, very up front, but almost to a fault. Its dumbing down the bass and all the other elements of your track. If you mayb just lowered the level a little and see how that changes the mixdown, you could prolly get away with some gain reduction there and a gain increase on your master ( if you see what Im saying, less synth more main volume to make up for the gain reduction ). Having things balanced will go a long way - having one element louder than the rest can cause issues like this drowning out elements that make the track pop.

Great job everyone this was really fun i hope to do another one very soon

[niarta]

Track 1 - I like that guitar style synth. Pretty good buildup there. IMHO drums do not fit this track, they are too fat. Pretty repetitive. Love the bridge / intermission part at 2:12, very nice ambient sound. Nice intro into second chorus at around 3 min mark. I like the bells at the end, wish they made it into the rest of the track.

Track 2 - Funky house beat here. Groovy beat! I like the blip blops / fart sounds at around the 1:45 mark. The vox you used were pretty spot on here as well. Pretty funky beat throughout. I'm digging synth design on this one.

Track 3 - Yes! great melody here in the beginning. More varied and interesting. Really digging the vibe on this one. Great synth design. I like that guitar sound.

Track 4 - Mixing straight outta the bat is pretty bad. A little bit more dancy, EDM sounding. Too long of a silence at the 1:25 mark IMO. Synth design is meh. The notes don't work great in this key I think.

Track 3 takes cake.

[KLH]

I need to get time to post feedback and vote!

[Rek_Aviles]

Rep'd all who voted (ATrain - need to spread some before giving you some). This had a better turn out than I thought.

I'll post up my comments tomorrow.

[DJAkash]

2 was the best and most chill, I would actually believe it was a beatport top track if someone played it and told me it was. The others were also good but not as relaxing, some had either too much or not enough going on. But let me make this clear, I am impressed by everyone for producing these from scratch in such short time and confident given time every one of these producers can make tracks anyone can appreciate on even a larger scale than our forum!

[DoomJockey]

Sorry guys, I have been almost non-existent ever since my laptop broke. First off, awesome job to everybody! Was a real challenge to put together something so quickly, and the competition you guys provided was awesome!

My track was track number 4...I really ran out of time and rushed to make the thing in the first place. My first thoughts after finishing were the overall repetitiveness. It took me so long to create the melody (It took me several hours of pacing before I came up with something I liked) that by the time I spread the track out I really didn't feel like wasting the time to create more notes and progressions. Other than that, my mixing was rushed and my sounds could've been "bigger". I also don't make techno, this was the first I have ever made so I was really playing it by ear the whole time.

Now for the rest of you!

Track 1: Overall, me personally the melody was probably the coolest out of all 4 to me. It made me think of a jazzercise video. I like most of the percussion elements and it carried the song pretty well. On the downside, I would say it does suffer from too much repetitiveness of said melody. The mixing also could use some improvement as everything sounded very centered and it didn't have much stereo space. I think adding some variation to notes every 4-8 bars would've done this track justice.

Track 2: This is the one I voted for. I didn't particularly care for the style of music, but it was by far the best mix. Good variation, flow, and overall sound. Wasn't much bad to say about it.

Track 3: Again not my genre, but a great track. Good flow, really loved the percussion elements and the melody. The first time I listened to this on my good speakers I remember thinking at first that it was lacking a good stereo image, but then it improved over time. I also wasn't a huge fan of all the sounds in the high frequency ranges.


All of you did such a good job! Really looking forward to the next opportunity to compete against you guys and I hope everybody got some good experience out of it!